The knives are out when dictators fall from power, but the politics of retribution is rarely clean or cathartic
Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 August 2009 17,00 BST
The tables turn quickly in politics, but for dictators the shift from all-powerful to powerless can be rather sudden. Over a period of 12 months, the last Shah of Iran went from feared dictator to refugee who struggled to find asylum in three different continents (including the US, his one-time staunchest supporter).
Most out-of-power autocrats look to self-imposed exile to shield themselves from vengeful countrymen desperate to settle scores. Perhaps that is why Pakistan’s Musharraf, former president and army chief, recently bought a central London apartment.
There was a brief period of quiet after Musharraf was pressured to resign as president in August last year. That silence was soon broken, however, as he engaged in a worldwide speaking tour. More recently, the retired army chief made overtures to the main faction of a political party, the Muslim League Qaid branch, favoured under his rule, only to be rejected.
Perhaps even more damning, the army’s top spokesperson, General Athar Abbas, wrote a revealing article on an official website, arguing that Musharraf and other previous military rulers had harmed the army’s image.
Even political foes are now lining up to bring Musharraf down, and, in scenes reminiscent of the backlash against Indira Gandhi following her 1977 electoral defeat in neighbouring India, Pakistan’s courts have become a central front in the drama.
Several different actions have been filed at the courts, ranging from those involving people kidnapped by security agencies under Musharraf’s rule to those challenging his alleged role in the murder of the celebrated Balochi statesmen Akbar Khan Bughti.
Politically motivated court cases are not new in Pakistan. The country’s first democratically elected leader, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was hanged after a court – under pressure from then Army Chief Zia ul Haq – found him guilty of a trumped-up charge of conspiracy to murder a political rival. Practically every prominent politician has had charges against them brought to the bench.
The Musharraf trials are nevertheless unprecedented in this country’s young history of democratic rule – military rulers are rarely brought to trial here. Indeed, no military ruler has ever been brought before the due process of the law.
But the current battle is broader than Musharraf or the legacy of military rule he represents. Among the petitions filed with the courts are several that seek to annul the National Reconciliation Ordinance under which the former president allowed exiled political leaders like Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan to contest elections eventually held in February 2008. Bhutto was killed two months before those elections, but the NRO enabled her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to eventually become the country’s president.
In seeking to dismantle his legacy current political players are also looking to undermine incumbent politicians, particularly President Asif Ali Zardari.
The NRO washed away the stain of previous corruption charges that had disqualified Zardari and several of his stalwarts from high office. Zardari alone was cleared of five outstanding corruption charges a mere month after his party won the February 2008 elections. Removal of NRO protection would almost certainly reopen these dirty cans of worms bringing government business to a total halt.
Although the supreme court – Pakistan’s highest judiciary – has avoided ruling on the NRO cases, late last month it ruled a state of emergency imposed by Musharraf in November 2007 illegal. According to Athar Minallah, a senior member of the lawyers’ movement that challenged the former president’s clamp-down, the ruling demonstrates that “Pakistan is on its path towards rule of law”.
Detractors say the case unduly politicises the judiciary which – given it includes no fewer than 14 judges, including the chief justice, dismissed by Musharraf under the state of emergency – cannot promise neutrality.
To its credit, however, the supreme court has avoided the issue of charging Musharraf with treason, saying it is a matter for parliament to decide. For its part, the government says it won’t endorse cases against Musharraf, although Attorney-General Sardar Latif Khosa spiced things up by saying it would support his prosecution if unanimously sought by parliament.
Such tribulations are common to many countries going through the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet infamously received lifetime amnesty from charges of torture and other crimes until eventually being brought to trial shortly before his death. In contrast, many Argentinean generals guilty of atrocities during their country’s “Dirty War” during the 1970s and 80s were eventually prosecuted.
The Obama administration is currently wrestling with the decision whether to investigate US interrogators for alleged torture of suspected terrorists, although the prospect of high level officials such as former vice president, Dick Cheney, secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, or Bush himself being charged remains unlikely.
The chances of Pervez Musharraf being indicted are probably more likely, but remain slim. Regardless, the current court dramas demonstrate the increasing influence of the judiciary, and especially the supreme court, in Pakistan’s political landscape.