Asghar Khan case…getting cute

Islamabad diary
Our Man of Steel finally commits himself on that ticking bomb that won’t stop ticking: the so-called Asghar Khan case. He says he took no money from the ISI in the 1990 elections. But that during an election campaign there were many people who came up with donations and so if…”the inquiry finds out that such a transaction did take place, I won’t have a problem returning the amount with interest.”
If this is not cute what is? In Clausewitzian strategy I suppose this would be called the fallback position: I don’t really remember, having so many things on my plate, but if it is proved that I did do something, rest assured I will make amends.
The amount allegedly passed to Mr Sharif in 1990 was 33 lakhs. To the present Khadim-e-Ala it was (again allegedly) 22 lakhs. Other luminaries – the list includes Pakistan’s most principled politician, Javed Hashmi, and Ijazul Haq, distinguished scion of the late commander of the faithful, Gen Ziaul Haq – were also recipients of ISI largesse to ease their path through those elections whose central purpose was to render a knock-out blow to the PPP.
The PPP was duly flattened but there was still life in its body and three years later, in one of those epic turns so beloved of Pakistani politics, Benazir Bhutto bounced back into the PM’s office. What the ISI and its political minions – the polite word for stooges – could not achieve was delivered years later by that other champion of democracy, Mr Zardari. But this is to move away from our story…the Asghar Khan case.
One of the central characters in this drama, Younus Habib of the defunct Mehran Back from where all the money came, never wavered in his testimony. He kept saying throughout that the money was given as alleged. But after the 2008 elections when the PML-N through generous help from Asif Zardari (about this some other time) captured power in Punjab, Younus Habib had not so much a change of heart as a change of memory.
Yes, he declared, he had delivered money to a Mr Sharif in 1990 but it was not Mr Sharif of Raiwind. Instead it was the Mr Sharif who owns the Tulip Hotel next to Serai Alamgir on the GT Road overlooking the River Chenab. I am not making this up. He actually said it. History does not record the reaction of Mr Sharif of the Tulip Hotel. Was he amused or otherwise?
(By the way, Tulip Hotel is a cute place, with a wonderful view of the river, and fresh fish to eat. As a getaway place for an excitement-filled liaison its location is hard to beat.)
But let’s keep things in perspective. Mr Sharif, the prime minister, is known for his strict adherence to the truth. In Saudi Arabian exile he kept saying, with a straight face, that there had been no agreement, nothing written, with Gen Pervez Musharraf. When Gen Musharraf complained to the Saudis, the Sharifs’ protectors after all, the truth came out.
Prince Muqrin, the then Saudi intelligence chief, arrived in Islamabad and at a heavily-attended press conference – and Saudis in his position are not usually fond of press conferences – waved a piece of paper and said here was the agreement.
Lesser mortals would have been fazed. Not the Sharifs who calmly responded that the agreement was for five years, not ten…as if this was adequate explanation of their stout and total denials.
Apropos the Asghar Khan case Mr Sharif, the prime minister, has left himself enough wiggle room. He doesn’t really remember, he is saying, because in elections donations pour in from all sides, the implication being that for someone like him, grappling all the time with higher issues touching the national interest, it is not easy to remember every little thing.
This coolness is to be admired. According to this way of thinking receiving money from the ISI is no big deal, especially if you are willing to return it with interest.
Such a plea entered on behalf of habitual offenders would ensure that no one ever went to jail – Milord I really don’t remember doing this but if learned counsel for the prosecution were to find me guilty I would have no hesitation in reimbursing the expenses, and with interest if Milord so thinks fit.
Anywhere else there would be uproar, and the air would be thick with the words ‘corrupt practices’. And the scandal would lead to criminal prosecutions. Here the PM almost makes it sound like an exercise in misguided innocence.
In more unforgiving climates the army chief allowing this business would be cashiered. The ISI chief would be indicted. The politicians involved would be facing trial. We have to be thankful to the Pakistani climate that here the chief executive, if proven guilty, is offering to return the money with interest. For cuteness this takes the prize.
How did it all begin? When Gen Beg was army chief, head of ISI was his close confidant Lt Gen Durrani. In 1994 when Gen Durrani was ambassador in West Germany, he received a visit from the then additional director general FIA, one Rehman Malik. To the latter Gen Durrani gave an affidavit with the explosive revelations of money distributed by the ISI to a list of politicians and a few journalists during the 1990 elections.
The then interior minister Maj Gen Naseerullah Babar, Sitara Juraat and Bar, wanted to do something – some action on the list – but reportedly Benazir Bhutto was averse to the idea. Gen Babar then took the affidavit to Air Marshal Asghar Khan at his house in F-6/3 Islamabad and the Air Marshal filed a petition in the Supreme Court which gathered dust for long years until taken up by Milord Chaudhry when he was restored as chief justice.
A three-member bench of the SC headed by Justice Chaudhry passed an order in October 2012 declaring unequivocally that the 1990 elections were rigged and that action should be taken against the then army and ISI chiefs. The order also called for proceedings against the politicians receiving the funds and said: “…transparent investigation on the criminal side shall be initiated against all of them and if sufficient evidence is collected, they shall be sent up to face the trial, according to law.”
The order did not say that any money received should be returned, or returned with interest.
It is pursuant to that order that the current FIA investigation, proceeding at a snail’s pace, is taking place, and pursuant to this investigation that the PM has submitted his statement. Who would have thought it would come to this?
High officials don’t lie. They only suffer lapses of memory. In this instance either Gen Durrani had a lapse of memory in Bonn all those years back or Mian Nawaz Sharif’s memory is not coming to his assistance now. It can’t be both. One or the other is seeing four fingers instead of two, or two instead of four.
The shadows are lengthening. There are other problems this government is facing: Nandipur as the most obvious symbol of projects gone wrong and draining public money, ministers at each others’ throats and venting petty grievances in full public view, and a general impression of a dispensation adrift. But the Asghar Khan case is a ticking bomb that if brought to the point of explosion could blow more than wide-eyed innocence away.
Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com