| August 25, 2007 | Saturday | Sha’aban 11, 1428 |
In the midst of Twenty20, 20/20, 2030 and tunnel visions
AFTER all, as it transpired in the Supreme Court there was no secret exile deal between Nawaz Sharif and Gen Pervez Musharraf. The Sharifs, it seems in retrospect, had the sense even at gunpoint to make an ingenious third party arrangement which could not be held up in court of law as a genuine agreement.
Since it was an ‘agreement’ between individuals, the government of Pakistan could not have been a party to it and, therefore, no one signed on its behalf. The other two parties to this ‘agreement’, the under-cover ‘gentleman’ and the Saudi monarch, King Fahd, also did not put their signatures for the same reasons perhaps and only gave their verbal assurance to strictly enforce their side of the agreement.
After Thursday’s press conference by the Sharif brothers at the PML-N’s international headquarters in London, I tried to find out the real identity of the ‘gentleman’ who is mentioned in the documents produced by the government as the person who negotiated the exile deal with the government on behalf of the Sharif family and who is also understood to have assured King Fahd that the Sharifs would not violate the ‘agreement’ during their 10-year exile in the kingdom. But no one close to the Sharif brothers appeared to know who the undercover man was. And those whom I suspect knew were not willing to talk about him.
One thing was sure. He must have been a man of confidence of all the three parties involved -- the Sharifs’, the royal family and Musharraf. And one man fits the bill perfectly -- the former prime minister of Lebanon, the late Rafik Baha ad-Din Hariri. He was a good friend of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz (the then finance minister) from his Citibank days in the Middle East and some unconfirmed reports say that he was also related to the late Saudi King Fahd. He was certainly very close to the Saudi royal family. The Lebanese-born construction tycoon was given Saudi citizenship in 1978 and later he served as Saudi Arabia’s emissary to Lebanon before becoming his country’s prime minister in 1992. And it is more than possible that the paths of Hariri and Nawaz must have crossed a number of times when the two were the prime ministers of their respective countries at about the same time and possibly developed some sort of camaraderie.
Both Hariri and King Fahd died in 2005. Hariri was killed in a car bomb attack in February 2005 and the Saudi King after protracted illness in August 2005. And the two brothers left Saudi Arabia soon after for the UK from where they have been playing an active role in their country’s politics since, seemingly without having to bother about the ‘undertakings’ they had signed. Hariri and King Fahd did keep their side of the bargain as long as they could. When Shahbaz tried to return home in May 2004, both Hariri and King Fahd were still alive and, therefore, Musharraf could have him returned to Saudi Arabia knowing very well that the Kingdom would have no hesitation to receive him back and that there was Hariri to guarantee that the PML-N president would be obliged to comply with his signed ‘undertaking’.
At a media briefing arranged for senior journalists, editors and columnists, the then Chief Executive, General Pervez Musharraf, at one point blurted out: “Had we not agreed to the Saudi proposal send him into exile they would have stopped our oil facility.” In those days when the economy was in doldrums because of the international punishment we were being meted out for testing our nuclear device, the Saudis had come to our help with a $500 million oil facility annually (a deferred payment arrangement which in fact meant free oil). But immediately this gem of a revelation was declared off the record by the media advisers accompanying the CE.
And here is how President Musharraf himself recalls the event of Sharif family’s departure in his book, ‘In the Line of Fire’: Nawaz Sharif had been convicted of hijacking my plane. He faced life imprisonment. He could not withstand the rigours of isolation and confinement. He used his previous contact with Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who asked me to allow Nawaz Sharif to go into exile there. I could not turn this request down, since it came from a great friend of Pakistan who also genuinely called me a brother -- and I in return called him an elder brother. I also thought that sending the entire family of Nawaz Sharif out of the country might be politically advantageous. It would avoid prolonged destabilising effect of a high-profile trial. I obliged. We struck a deal. I would give Nawaz Sharif a conditional pardon, and he and certain members of his family would go to Saudi Arabia for 10 years and remain out of politics. They would give up some of their properties as reparation for their misdeeds. This deal was signed by all the elders of the Sharif family, including Nawaz Sharif, his brother Shahbaz Sharif, and their father. It must be said that Shahbaz Sharif initially refused to sign and did not want to leave Pakistan. But we could not have this partial acceptance. In early 2006 Nawaz Sharif approached me through a very dear friend of mine for permission to go to London to be with his seriously ill son. Wishing the boy well, I readily agreed.’’
Rumours now have it that common friend, Brigadier (retd) Niaz, an arms dealer of great wealth, has arrived in London with a message from friend Musharraf for friend Nawaz inviting him to join a proposed process of Grand National Reconciliation.
And that is said to be what had prompted Nawaz to say during his media meetings on Thursday that he was willing to join such a process if only Musharraf were to announce that he was abandoning politics and going home.
REELING as it is from a spate of unheralded actions this year, Islamabad is now bracing up for a taut, suspenseful thriller that can keep most Hollywood directors and us on the edge of our seats.
Gen Pervez Musharraf has already provided the script — an eye for another presidential pie in uniform — which, he is hoping to direct and produce himself as well but this fall, be sure to watch the edited version at the Supreme Court.
All roads lead to Islamabad; particularly, after the general assumption that those leading to the Aiwan-i-Sadr may be paved with martial law (since emergency was trashed with an outstation call).
The vision on display in our midst ranges from the blurred and myopic to the bright and tunnel. Islamabad is at the heart of this visionary combo but sure as the day, anything mysterious that happens in Isloo affects the entire country — Karachi Stock Exchange, for instance.
To come back to visions, the nation is still coming to terms with the Twenty20 (as the hit-and-run cricket is known) setback dealt by her stars, who are finding new currency across the border. The way they are bee-lining for fantabulous greenbacks, it might give cross-border infiltration an entirely new meaning. But for a change, Islamabad would be the accuser and not the accused.
While most of us are familiar with the term 20/20 vision, not everyone understands its real meaning. Consequently, a brief overview may be of some assistance.
20/20 vision is a term used to express normal visual acuity (the clarity or sharpness of vision) measured at a distance of 20 feet. If you have 20/20 vision, you can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance.
Makes us wonder what the vision at Aiwan-i-Sadr is, especially after 20/7 and 23/8.
With the season of corner meetings returning to arguably, the most happening political capital in the world, a friend suggested the standard refrain from the highest office in the capital was ‘my way or the highway’ in which case, this Allama Iqbal verse evokes resonance like little else:
Nigah-i-faqr main shaan-i-sikandari kya hai Khiraaj ki jo gada ho, wo qaiseri kya hai Falak nay ki hai ata un ko khaajgi kay jinhain Khabar nahin rawish-i-banda parwari kya hai
(What is the worth of kingdom in the eyes of a saint, what value a rule where the worry is to keep it secure; Nature has blessed them to rule, who, know not what sense of serving humanity is)
Unmoved by the shaking — some suggest, sinking — Titanic, the General projected a brand new 2030 vision early in the week at Aiwan-i-Sadr, which envisions all things bright and beautiful but are premised on unhindered rule, which if it materialises, would break the longevity record of his predecessor, Ziaul Haq.
Noble as long term vision is, it can only be viewed in context. Ask Ahsan Iqbal, the Sharif (in prim and proper Urdu) aide, who first entertained the extension theory with Vision 2010 before someone at the GHQ abruptly cut it short.
With such profound shortsightedness, let’s see how optometrists view 20/20 vision.
“20/20 does not mean perfect vision. It only indicates the sharpness or clarity of vision at a distance. There are other important vision skills, among them peripheral awareness or side vision, eye coordination, depth perception, focusing ability and colour vision that contribute to one’s overall vision ability”. If public opinion in Islamabad, where all the action is, offers any guide, the overriding view is that peripheral awareness or side vision is acute in quarters most concerned about maintaining the status quo.
Others, who have seen the first glimpses of a revolution, which we, in the media televised for you these last few months, feel assured that the depth perception and focusing ability lies where tunnel vision is: Supreme Court.
Islooites, long accustomed to myopic vision in the power corridors, are now proud witnesses to the changing vision outside it. The Sher Afgans of this world can have theirs checked.
On the lighter side, many of us here in Islamabad feel that even though the first Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa is some distance away, the wham-bam style of cricket is already being replicated in politics.
With everyone in thrall of judicial activism and defining judgments the order of the day, many pundits are encouraged to think that any political Twenty20 is a flawed vision and cannot be played at or from Aiwan-i-Sadr.
You can, however, trust Sheikh Rashid to provide food for thought with what’s cooking in the inner circle. In one such statement last week, he let the discerning know that those creating hurdles in the way of his boss’s re-election, had better brace up for the long arm of the (martial) law.
Is this little bit of Twenty20 — the first pinch-hitting of which was demonstrated by Sher Afgan a la Shahid Afridi, the other day — for the benefit of July 20 visionaries?
We may be only weeks away from unveiling or unravelling the long term. kaamyabi@gmail.com