Asia

Removing Zardari’s Amnesty Cannot Purify Pakistan’s Corrupt Political Culture

The Pakistan Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) has come as no surprise.  Such was the feared public revulsion at allowing such criminals getting away with absolutely everything under the sun including murder, embezzlement and theft amongst other charges, Zardari failed to get support even from his own ruling coalition to legitimise Musharraf’s parting gift in the National Assembly and the Senate. It was just a matter of time before the Supreme Court voided his amnesty and that of the countless other criminals turned ministers alongside with him such as Interior Minister Rehman Malik. The truth is that the only real shock was the fact that such a despised and corrupt individual such as Zardari could come have to power in the first place with his coterie of cronies.

Zardari’s notorious record for corruption is unprecedented even by Pakistan’s standards. Nicknamed as ‘Mr 10%’ for his graft accumulation during his wife Benazir Bhutto’s two governments in the 1990s, Zardari’s fortune, made in a country where two thirds of the population lives on less than $2 a day, is estimated to be at least $1.5 billion, much of it laundered and stashed overseas in various bank accounts and properties. No one will ever forget Zardari’s air conditioned stud farms in Islamabad or the infamous 355 acre British Rockwood mansion better known as the ‘Surrey Mahal’ which the ‘first couple’ denied was theirs’ but eventually were forced to admitting to owning. Moreover both Bhutto and Zardari were convicted in a Swiss court for corruption. Today as Transparency International reports that Pakistan has slipped to become rated as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, nobody in Pakistan would bat an eyelid at this scandalous distinction with Zardari at the helm. Yet both Barack Obama and Gordon Brown have strongly endorsed and backed their ‘democratic’ friend Zardari.

The explanation for this support is that Zardari could only come to power with the help of London and Washington. His amnesty was engineered in the corridors of power in Washington and London who did everything possible to get Bhutto back to power to replace the unpopular and waning General Pervez Musharraf. In return Zardari has willingly served the West’s agenda of occupying Afghanistan and spreading the flames of America’s ‘War on Terror’ into Pakistan itself; Zardari ordered the military operations in Swat and Waziristan designed to break the back of the resistance that defies the occupation of Afghanistan. Today these operations have left more than 3.5 million people homeless and displaced. Zardari has also allowed American paramilitaries’ such as Blackwater and DynCorp, fronts for the CIA, to wreak havoc in Pakistan with their covert drone strikes and orchestrated terror attacks in an attempt to build public opinion for a war that enjoys no support amongst the Pakistani people.  The NRO elevated crooks and career criminals beyond their wildest dreams whilst Western governments tried to sell the lie to the Pakistani people that democracy would bring the restoration of the rule of law when in reality it placed them above the law. Who can believe then that Rehman Malik, a man convicted for corruption and in the lap of the Americans, who also continues to deny the presence of Blackwater despite all the mounting evidence, can ensure Pakistan’s internal security as bombs go off with such devastating impunity? As Zardari battles to cling to power hiding behind his fig leaf of constitutional immunity despite having lost all moral authority, it is a small wonder then that Pakistanis have over joyously welcomed the prospect of Zardari and his treacherous regime being forced from power.

Yet the sad truth is that there is very little real prospect of Zardari and his criminal associates facing real punishment. The removal of the NRO shield is actually an in fight in the Pakistani establishment over who controls the levers of power, who gets to enjoy the perks of office and who get’s their hands on Washington’s annual bribe money which now stands at over $1.5 billion. For the facts are that whilst Zardari has rightly been exposed for his treachery to America, the Pakistani establishment at the time of the enactment of the disgraceful NRO by Musharraf remained silent and accepted the anointment of Zardari as the next ruler. Moreover Zardari could not have executed the military operations without the top army leadership backing Washington’s war in Pakistan’s tribal regions. This is why the brave Muslim soldiers of the Pakistan army continue to be sacrificed for America in a pitiful situation which is only leading to more turmoil inside Pakistan, a situation that did not exist prior to America arriving in the region in 2001.

Nor is there any real prospect of a change in policy on the horizon. Nawaz Sharif, the main opposition leader leading the PML-N and another wealthy politically made billionaire during his stints in power, continues to support America’s ‘War on Terror’ as he warmly welcomes representatives of the neo-American Raj to his Raiwind residence. Pakistan’s main politicians willingly support American policy in a political system designed to serve the interests of the big feudal landowners, industrialists and military generals. This is why nobody can spot the difference in Pakistan’s policy towards America when General Pervez Musharraf was in power and with Zardari in control today. All of this is transpiring as an aggressive American expansion in drone attacks has taken place in the last few days with America’s Vice President threatening that the 30,000 troop surge in Afghanistan is really designed for Pakistan, declaring “our focus should be Pakistan and Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons”. Pakistan’s secular system, whether manifested in today’s democracy or yesteryear’s military dictatorship, has utterly failed to serve it’s people over the last 62 years because it is corrupt to the core.

A system based on the Islamic values of the Pakistani people is the only real prospect of saving the country. The West’s forcibly exported values of freedom and moral ambivalence have failed to take root in Pakistan; these values are alien to the Islamic beliefs of the Pakistani people which is why secularism and democracy have been rejected at the grassroots level. Pakistan’s people believe in the Shariah, they believe in what the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم brought, which is why poll after poll shows strong support for the re-establishment of the Khilafah. They desire such a system because they know it will provide real justice as established in Islamic jurisprudence. They know what happened when the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم was approached about sparing a rich woman from a powerful tribe for the punishment of theft, who answered: Those before you were destroyed because they used to carry out the hadd punishment on the weak and did not carry it out on the noble. By the One who has my soul in His hand, if Fatima (daughter of the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم) were to do that, I would cut off her hand.”

Contrast that with the situation in Pakistan today where the rich and powerful are free to do whatever they want, where they willingly sacrifice the people of Pakistan for America’s war simply to stay in power to enrich themselves. This is deviously exploited by Western governments such as the British and Americans who openly interfere and support such sycophantic rulers who slavishly seek external support in return for furthering their own nefarious regional interests. The death of the NRO is immaterial for it was simply another by product of a failed political system where politicians are free to legislate at will which is the real problem; what needs to change is the system that allows such ordinances to come to pass for tomorrow these rulers will certainly be replaced with another set of obsequious tyrannical rulers treading the same path of self gratification. The only solution for genuinely solving Pakistan’s deepening crisis is for the people of Pakistan and the Pakistan army to re-establish the Khilafah; there is no other way left.