NRO led to return of Sharifs

By Shehryar Riaz Sheikh

May 12, 2004 was another sad day in our chequered history when the president of PML-N Shahbaz Sharif was refused entry in Pakistan by a brutal tyrant playing havoc with the system. Same scenes were repeated on September 10, 2007 when the twice-elected Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif was deported to Saudia Arabia despite a ruling by the Supreme Court in favour of his return in August 2007.

Yet another sad aspect of the fiasco was the confirmation of the fact that a personal deal had indeed been struck by the former prime minister. Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Muqrin and Saad Hariri addressed an unprecedented joint press conference telling journalists that the PML-N Quaid was bound under the agreement not to return to Pakistan before ten years in exile. The sorry state of the deal gave an unfortunate cover up to the deportation. Hence, despite the order of the Supreme Court and despite his visible support in the province of Punjab, a democratic leader was shunned away from his own country. It was the return of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto that paved the way for the return of the leaders of PML-N. It was her sheer political manoeuvering that made the dictator shed off the same uniform, which he used to consider as his skin. The lawyers movement had a big role in his downfall but certainly it was the dialogue that she initiated which totally kick started the political process in the country. Eventually it was her ultimate sacrifice that completely broke the dictatorial chains.

The Charter of Democracy (CoD) by far is the best thing that happened to Pakistan after the 1973 Constitution. The brightest aspect of the CoD was to put an end to political confrontation and victimization and to strengthen the democratic system at all costs. It was established that the people of Pakistan would decide the fate of their leaders through power of ballot which is indeed stronger than all the bullets combined.

Sadly today though not for the first time in its short existence, the democratic order is once again under threat. We are a strange nation always in crisis, vaguely discontented if there is no real crisis at hand. We are in a state of war but sadly, everything these days tends to revolve around the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). A vilification campaign has been initiated to grossly demonize the supreme commander of the armed forces—President Asif Ali Zardari. There could not have been a more dangerous time to start such a campaign. The country is fighting one of the most crucial battles in her history. We are fighting an enemy who considers no one in Pakistan as innocent. We are fighting a disgustingly heartless and godless enemy who is utterly unworthy of the support of any right-minded person. They are the cruel-blooded murderers of innocent children of our nation. The words of the famous Urdu poet Ahmad Faraz echo today where he said “Abb kay agar zalzalay aaye tou qiyamat ho gee”. It is time for us to unite as a nation more than ever. When finally the strategic policy is out of the way in this war, for heaven’s sake we cannot let the NRO be another hindrance. Only a democratic government can win us the war of our very existence.

Most of the major political parties do not have a clear stance on the biggest issue the country is facing today. While the terrorists attack the heart of the country, some of the political parties are always found trying to disrupt the ongoing war by diverting the attention of the masses to non-issues hence sadly living up to the assumption of being a closet Taliban indeed. PPP is the only party which has the support and clearest stance on terrorism. Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was indeed the terrorists’ worst nightmare. She bravely fought with the Mullah ideology all her life and tragically fell a victim to it. Following her mission, President Zardari being the supreme commander of the armed forces reclaimed Swat with the invaluable sacrifices of the army led by a professional army chief, thus achieving in few months what the military dictator could not in the last eight years. It is sad to read how some elements in our ‘free media’ totally ignore the role of the civilian authority in the present war. The traditional mischief mongers are back in play and bent upon scuttling the ship of democratic system.

All those creating hype and hysteria over the NRO can surely not claim to be innocent on all counts, or is the state of denial penetrated so deeply into their collective psyche that they have erased all memory of their past. The leaders of PML-N should be asked as to why there is a law which pardons self-confessing accused and convicted people. The PML-Q should be asking themselves as to why in the last dictatorial regime loans having the capacity to fill out deep oceans were casually waived off and how NAB references were turned into ministerial oaths for the formation of an utterly farce. A person who spent eleven and a half years fighting in every city of the country and across the continent to prove his innocence without a single conviction, is still considered corrupt whereas the convicted ones who signed off deals or many who flourished in the dictatorial regime are considered heroes of the nation today. Is it because the former is trying to command their authority as envisaged by the forsaken constitution of Pakistan? Will there be double standards yet again like in the past when one prime minister is escorted with forty suitcases to a palace in the Arab land and the other one who happened to be the most popular son of the soil is sent to the gallows. People who have sold national secrets are still claimed to be heroes whereas a twice-elected prime minister was labeled a security risk.

Did anyone intervene when the whole of the intelligence apparatus was used (the IJI episode) to suppress the will of the people to stop a Bhutto from being a prime minister? Does it all boil down to one bitter fact in our land of the pure that the establishment cannot contemplate playing second fiddle to the elected government and probably through indirect means is bent upon damaging, by hook or by crook, the nascent saplings of democracy yet again? In all the cases concerning President Zardari and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, the hearings had concluded in the previous eleven and a half years and each one was won on merit and not on the basis of the NRO. Eventually any unwanted beneficiary of the NRO would be drained out within the system over time but if God forbid the system is uprooted, all will be lost.

All the media men who claim to be the voice of the nation (who in fact are mere mouth-pieces of the establishment with no credibility at all), the opposition parties claiming to be champions of ‘democracy’ but always willing to gain brownie points from the establishment and any self-proclaimed ‘saviour’ of the nation should realize that they can never silence the aspirations of the people.

After all there is another court, which is bigger than all courts combined, it is the court of the people. The critics forget to take into account the most important notion that despite all the rotten charges of corruption and the NRO, the people of Pakistan still voted for PPP. Those who are advising President Zardari to resign should be reminded of the fact that he was not imposed on us in the darkness of the night. He was elected by an overwhelming two-thirds majority and the significant part of the election was that representatives of three smaller provinces voted almost unanimously for him. He is the lynchpin of the federation and little do all these anti-democratic forces realize that it is not in the genes of the party of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to back down. Not now, not ever. It is time for democracy to prevail to reclaim Jinnah’s Pakistan. It is time for people of Pakistan to stand by the elected government and support our troops at this time of war and despair. As the legendary Ahmad Faraz said “Ajj Aisa Nahi Honay Deina [do not, O please do not, let the usurpers, the tyrants, the murderers divide you into factions].”

We must realize that the present democratic dispensation is the sequel to NRO. Had it not been achieved, there would have been no elections, no assemblies, no free judiciary and no free media. The national leadership too would still have been languishing in exile.

By Shehryar Riaz Sheikh
The writer is a student of law at the University of Essex
Email:sfriaz@essex.ac.uk

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