Q. General, how long have you been in military life?
A. If you don’t know anything about me, why do you want to interview me?
The above question and the answer are not taken from the Broadsheet Commission Report, recently written and released by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. This is taken from Ken Metzler’s 1977 book “Creative Interviewing.” This book was written as a guide to gathering information by asking questions. It is pretty much up to the interviewer or the investigator to ask questions to elicit answers that he or she wants to get to the truth. The Broadsheet Commission Report perhaps illustrates this point to the fullest. It conveniently leaves out all the powers that were, especially the generals who headed the National Accountability Bureau during the time this wild goose chase was conceived, signed, executed and then simmered until the proverbial tipping point, costing the country a lot of money, and still counting.
Well, it seems that the Commission never heard of the famous desk sign “The Buck Stops Here,” on the presidential desk of President Harry Truman of the United States. Or it chose to ignore it and followed the Pakistani justice system. In this system, we routinely find the application of “the buck stops here,” at the lower- to mid-level people and almost never the highest-level ones, where it should actually stop. But then people at the top are powerful, rich and well connected. It is difficult and cumbersome to tackle them and their battery of lawyers. So we take the easy way out leaving them untouched.
Maybe the buck travels very slowly in Pakistan or doesn’t travel much at all. By the time inquiries or investigations take place the buck has reached somewhere in the middle of the totem pole and that is where it stays. Thus, the executive and sadly the judiciary get stuck there. This is exactly what seems to have happened in the Broadsheet inquiry. Everyone in the middle is a suspect except the generals who headed the NAB, the then Prime Minister, the then President, the High Commissioner for Pakistan in UK, the Law Minister, the Finance Minister and so on and so on. William Shenstone, English poet and essayist, was right when he wrote, “Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in.” Indeed.
The list of untouchables in Pakistan is long. To illustrate my point: A judge of a “Model Court” in Quetta acquitted a former Balochistan lawmaker Majeed Khan Achakzai, in the death of a traffic warden in a hit-and-run case in June 2017. The reason: “Lack of evidence.” The traffic warden Haji Atta Ullah was hit at G.P.O crossing in June 2017. The fast moving SUV that rammed into the traffic warden belonged to Majeed Khan Achakzai. The whole incident was captured on CCTV footage. After it went viral, the police was forced to file an FIR against the lawmaker. According to a newspaper, Achakzai appeared on some TV channels and apparently admitted to driving the vehicle at the time of the accident. Yet for the Judge of the Model Court the case lacked evidence. Such is the power of the untouchables or is it that justice in Pakistan is really blind?
The faux pas in the East was by none other than our Premier, who is increasingly becoming preachy, just like President Jimmy Carter towards the end of his only term as President. Since we are talking of gates, shall we call it “Rapegate?”
The Prime Minister now openly laments that he allowed the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to travel to United Kingdom for medical treatment because of a bail granted by a superior court. That may be so but now he is practically untouchable living in comfort in London. In my opinion, the government got weak-kneed just like the court due to a great farce put up in public by PML (N). Then some of the cabinet members played footsie with PML (N) for associations past and urged the Prime Minister, with tears, to let Nawaz Sharif go. Well if this lament was not enough in his recent question and answer session, he made another and a bigger faux pas. Two incidents happened in quick succession, both an affront to the women of the world. Both crafted by the men of the world, one in the West and the other in the East.
The one in the West has come to be known as “Sofagate.” In this incident European Commission Chief Ursula Von Der Leyen was left standing while the two gentlemen President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and European Council President Charles Michel quickly occupied the two chairs in the middle of the room. The three leaders enjoy equal diplomatic status or rank. Ladies first was also dumped in the process of this game of musical chairs. Since there was no third chair nearby, Ursula Leyen had to seat herself on a sofa away from the two chairs. This blunder came to be known as “Sofagate.” The blame game is still on as to who was responsible for this faux pas? Turks, as we know, do not easily accept blame.
The faux pas in the East was by none other than our Premier, who is increasingly becoming preachy, just like President Jimmy Carter towards the end of his only term as President. Since we are talking of gates, shall we call it “Rapegate?” The Prime Minister said on April 4, 2021 that when you increase obscenity in society there is an effect. And that the whole concept of the veil in our religion is to stamp out temptation in the males. In just one minute the Prime Minister, in words of The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, displayed “a baffling ignorance of where, why and how rape occurs,” but “also placed the blame on rape survivors.” Later his motley crew comprising the best and the brightest of the local variety went on overdrive for damage control.
The damage had been done. From around the world people protested against this insensitive remark. None other than the first former wife of the Premier, Jemima Goldsmith vociferously tweeted “The Imran I knew used to say put a veil on the man’s eyes and not on the woman.” Well the Premier kept different company then. Premier’s second former wife Reham Khan, also a British citizen, condemned this wrong way of thinking. Our Heads of State should learn from the words of Walter Lippmann on stereotypes “For the most part we do not see first and then define, we define first and then see.” Like Imran Khan now, President Pervez Musharraf by 2005 had become over confident and insensitive and carried an opinion on everything including “Rapegate.” He told Washington Post in September 2005 “This (rape) has become a money making concern (in Pakistan). A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship or be a millionaire, get yourself raped.”
Our Heads of State must measure their words twice and then speak. If speak they must.
